The Daily Freelancer: Why I Just Changed One of My Rates
No, I’m not going to tell you from what to what…
But let’s back up a bit.
One of the biggest questions I had as a freelancer, and what others seem to have as well, is how to price yourself. There’s absolutely no way to know that when you start off, and it comes from a mixture of feeling and market response. Feeling? Yes. There’s there an amount of gut feeling that comes with pricing yourself. And market response is whether the higher quality clients are paying for your services. But one of the biggest lessons I learned in my freelance research was to market yourself, and price yourself, as premium.
Now, to today. My superpowers, so to speak, are writing and editing.
I’ve been writing for twenty years in a bunch of different styles and forms, and have done a number of different writing projects, too. I’ve discovered that in the world of business, people like to hire writers because they either can’t write or don’t want to write their websites and articles themselves. They want a professional. I’ve been seeing a high demand for it, higher prices paid, and less people applying.
As for editing, it catches things people would never even find! I handle grammar, mechanics, punctuation, adherence to style guides, all of that — but I also look for correct dash usage, consistent capitalization and hyphenation, and more. And I can copyedit to make a piece sing (or, be silently readable?).
Since I’m doing most of my freelance work on Upwork, I set up two specialized profiles: Content Writing, and Editing and Proofreading. And I set my hourly rate the same for both.
Today, I changed one: I dropped my Editing and Proofreading rate.
Why? Because editing and proofreading comes a lot easier and quicker to me than writing. Because writing is more of a specialized skill that requires more technique and talent. I don’t believe I should be paid the same rate for both of those, one being a specialized skill and one being more of a commodity. And I could only determine that by experience, gut, and trial and error.
Hi! I’m Jessica, and I can write your content. Head to my Writer for Hire page, and work with me today!
